Thursday, April 30, 2009

I snagged these cheap on eBay last week, because, you know, I've got tons of wall space to display them on.

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA

I love this movie and I especially love this poster because it's a complete misrepresentation of the movie. It's also funny how Kris Kristofferson is top billed, even though he's only in the movie for 5 mintues and he plays a rapist. This poster is so over the top it's kinda brilliant.

THE BIG RACKET

Quite possibly the finest film Enzo Castellari ever made, this is my favorite euro-crime movie out of the countless titles I've seen. The fact that Blue Underground quoted me on the cover of the North American DVD release is a nice bonus too.

Both of these beauties are Turkish. I've no idea what AZRAIL translates to in English, but you can see 'Il Grande Racket' at the bottom, which isn't hard to translate at all.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

So as of Saturday afternoon, a week prior to our official 2 year anniversary, Alison and I are officially engaged. We went out to Montauk for the day and I popped the question on a pretty rocky beach that is, technically, the eastern most point in the state. More importantly, it's pretty and it has a neat light house and this early in the year it isn't completely swamped with tourists.

We haven't set a date yet, and we've got some creative budgeting to do to make it happen as we'll be fronting the bill for this ourselves, but that's okay. It'll come together at some point. All we know at this point is that we want to do it in Coney Island because it's kind of 'our spot' even if it is becoming yuppified in the worst sort of way.

After beach combing for a bit we did some shopping. I picked up the newly remastered 2 disc release of the Beastie Boys' Check Your Head, DVDs of One Armed Swordsman, My Young Auntie, and Poor Pretty Eddie and the Blu-ray release of Hellraiser. Nothing says romance like Jewish hip-hop, kung fu and Clive Barker but this is my way and Alison not only accepts my quirks but compliments them somehow. It's the fact that we can find this kick ass mix of sweet and romantic and culturally rad and interesting that makes our relationship strong, even during tougher times, of which we've thankfully only had a few (and none of which were direct results of either one of us - so there!).

We spent the night in Riverhead, a nice enought town that I now know has an aquarium - next time we're going to visit. We had a nice dinner and a couple of drinks at a decent Irish pub/grub joint on Main St. called Digger O'Dells that's definitely worth checking out if you make it to the area before retiring to the room to watch TV and zonk out. I attempted to have a nice relaxing swim but this plan was thwarted by the most obnoxious group of pre-teen screaming girls you've ever met in your life. Apparantly, according to the 'parent' who was chapheroning, it's ok to jump in the pool six inches from a complete stranger if you're on vacation, and if that stranger gets irrate, he's being a jerk. I'm comfortable in that role and I hope those brats drown, or at least wake up with water in their ears.

Getting back on topic, so yeah, we're engaged and it feels good. It feels right, too, both in terms of timing and logistics as well as solidity and true love. I really can't think of anything to complain about right now. Not anything that matters at least. Life is really good, and that's a wonderful feeling.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

I was going to write about the roller derby, but it's been too long now and the time has past. Let it suffice to say that the roller derby is fun. If the idea of girls zipping around in a circle smacking one another around sounds appealing to you, check it out. It's also ridiculously competitve and a lot of fun to watch not only for the skaters (some of whom don't look so good in spandex, but who am I to talk) but for the sport of it all.

At any rate, the zoo! I've wanted to go to the Bronx Zoo since I moved here over a year ago and the other day I got the chance. It's a pretty big place and apparantly I only saw about a third of it, but what I saw, I dug. It's as much a big giant park as it is anything else, it's really nicely kept and has some pretty interesting examples of quirky old architecture in and among the monkeys and lions and tigers. I took my camera and managed to snap a few decent shots, my favorite being the picture of the toad. I'm not sure why I like it so much, but I do. He just looks refreshingly grumpy.

In other news, I started a new job last week. The commute sucks and the pay could be better but the people are very nice and treat me with respect, which goes a long way in the long run. It's actually a fairly fun place to work. I'm doing office and logistics work for them, meaning that I deal with Chinese factories and customs companies and fun things like that. My direct supervisor, the owner's son, is about the nicest guy you could meet with a good sense of humor who is into Van Damme movies, so we get along just fine. I think I'll stick with it for a while. Even if I'm not getting rich, I'm getting by and we all know there's a lot more to happiness than money.

At any rate, here's some random pictures of some of the Bronx Zoo's coolest inhabitants, and a goofy duck who for some random reason was hanging out a bit removed from the lake on top of a rotting log just doing his own thing.